League Restructure Thread (Merged Threads)

[Griff]

5 minutes ago, LeeF said:

Remove the upper limit or at least control it as a percentage of turnover but have a floor I.e, the minimum a club must spend which would be based on the levels of central funding

 

Ah yes - paying the same players more money is guaranteed to make them play better.

The problem is the paucity of top class players available, rather than what they're paid.

[Griff]

3 minutes ago, Angelic Cynic said:

Over on the Doncaster forum,a supporter makes a very valid point,that if the 2 divisions of 10,named SL1 & SL2,is planned for 2023 - then there is no point to League 1 in 2022.

Well, it could be about winning League 1, of course.

If it was just about winning promotion, finishing second would be just as good as finishing first.

[lucky 7]

5 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

There has never been enough athletes in the Northern RL heartlands playing RL to sustain the game. It has always had to import players from predominantly 2 sources - (Welsh) RU and Australian/Pacific RL. The former was a source of full squads for some teams up to 1995.

What has happened in the past 25 years is that the cost of those imports has increased massively whilst the League's spending has not increased to compensate. The reasons for this are 3 fold. 2 groups have a vested interest in keeping it low - the big clubs who like winning whilst spending little, and the small teams, who like being able to spend minimal to stay in the league. The third group of clubs want to spend to compete with the big boys are neither large enough in number or well organised enough to force change.

So whilst the spending on our regular imports has gone down, the RL player base has not increased to compensate. Only "professional" academies have mitigated the impact of those factors. But as you say there are now plenty of bang average players.

Looking at the last time we cut clubs, the clubs facing the chop weren't rubbish because they were spending loads of money poorly, they were simply not spending nearly enough money at all. We are currently in a similar scenario with at least 3 clubs at any given moment not spending anywhere near the salary cap.

Always looking for the easy options by the clubs in this country by signing union players and imports has hindered the development of junior development.

[redjonn]

13 minutes ago, Griff said:

 

Ah yes - paying the same players more money is guaranteed to make them play better.

The problem is the paucity of top class players available, rather than what they're paid.

could look at it another way... pay a pittance to the up and coming youngsters expecting them to stay around to be be coached to improve.  We as in SL tend to use the young academy players as fill in... not guiding and manging their exposure whilst improving them through coaching at a higher level.

It seems to me we just want a fair number of academy players as just temporary make weights. Its not surprising so many move on/out

[LeeF]

46 minutes ago, Griff said:

 

Ah yes - paying the same players more money is guaranteed to make them play better.

The problem is the paucity of top class players available, rather than what they're paid.

Or compete to get better Overseas players rather than below average ones maybe?

[Spidey]

1 hour ago, Griff said:

Well, it could be about winning League 1, of course.

If it was just about winning promotion, finishing second would be just as good as finishing first.

Well this has been discussed:

 

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Spidey said:

Well this has been discussed:

 

That is an undeniably stupid idea.

If they are effectively cutting funding to just 20 teams, those 20 teams simply cannot be left to chance like who turns up on the day of the League 1 final ffs.

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

That is an undeniably stupid idea.

If they are effectively cutting funding to just 20 teams, those 20 teams simply cannot be left to chance like who turns up on the day of the League 1 final ffs.

By the sounds of it the RFL have asked clubs to submit their own proposals. No doubt the League 1 clubs are proposing this scenario

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

1 hour ago, Griff said:

 

Ah yes - paying the same players more money is guaranteed to make them play better.

The problem is the paucity of top class players available, rather than what they're paid.

This argument is ridiculous, players leave and join Super League every year. Players in Super League decide whether to join the NRL or RU. NRL players decide whether or not to join Super League clubs. The money on offer is clearly a factor in these decisions.

[OriginalMrC]

33 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

This argument is ridiculous, players leave and join Super League every year. Players in Super League decide whether to join the NRL or RU. NRL players decide whether or not to join Super League clubs. The money on offer is clearly a factor in these decisions.

Yes. Wages are the single biggest factor in sport. Generally teams that pay the biggest wages are the most successful for the simple reason they attract the best players. If someone put a huge cash injection into SL then the best rugby players in the world would want to play here.

I disagree with the argument there are not enough good players. There are plenty of world class players available SL generally can't attract them 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Griff said:

 

Ah yes - paying the same players more money is guaranteed to make them play better.

The problem is the paucity of top class players available, rather than what they're paid.

Players should get paid as much as they can get. Not what a salary cap says. In any other profession that would be inconceivable. Good luck if they can get more money, it is their career. 

Likewise the cap should go. It is not the fault of the other clubs if some clubs are weak. It is their responsibility to improve, not of others to be held back to make it a more level field. 

 

[Guest]

The loss of Bradford and it's fan base has also been massive downside the game in recent years. 

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

This argument is ridiculous, players leave and join Super League every year. Players in Super League decide whether to join the NRL or RU. NRL players decide whether or not to join Super League clubs. The money on offer is clearly a factor in these decisions.

Ridiculous? Well, maybe. Maybe not.

We don't have enough information to say what is or is not ridiculous but I suggest to you that...

1. There isn't enough money available to be thrown to make a real difference.

2. It doesn't address the problem of developing our own talent.

3. We don't know what issue Sky have with the quality of games but, if it's one-sidedness, having three or four clubs "invest" huge amounts of money on personnel isn't likely to improve the situation.

There are other things but these are the big three as I see it.

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Leonard said:

Players should get paid as much as they can get. Not what a salary cap says. In any other profession that would be inconceivable. Good luck if they can get more money, it is their career. 

Likewise the cap should go. It is not the fault of the other clubs if some clubs are weak. It is their responsibility to improve, not of others to be held back to make it a more level field. 

 

I certainly haven't taken the highest salary on offer in my own career. I doubt if players will do that. They'll decide based on where they think they'll be happiest. Prospects of winning stuff will interest players. It's more than likely that a Test grade player will want more to play for Hunslet (sorry, Hunslet, no offence) than he would for Leeds.

It's a great notion that the dross should improve their game rather than hold the others back. But unless that's achievable, it's not really much help, is it?

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

There has never been enough athletes in the Northern RL heartlands playing RL to sustain the game. It has always had to import players from predominantly 2 sources - (Welsh) RU and Australian/Pacific RL. The former was a source of full squads for some teams up to 1995.

What has happened in the past 25 years is that the cost of those imports has increased massively whilst the League's spending has not increased to compensate. The reasons for this are 3 fold. 2 groups have a vested interest in keeping it low - the big clubs who like winning whilst spending little, and the small teams, who like being able to spend minimal to stay in the league. The third group of clubs want to spend to compete with the big boys are neither large enough in number or well organised enough to force change.

So whilst the spending on our regular imports has gone down, the RL player base has not increased to compensate. Only "professional" academies have mitigated the impact of those factors. But as you say there are now plenty of bang average players.

Looking at the last time we cut clubs, the clubs facing the chop weren't rubbish because they were spending loads of money poorly, they were simply not spending nearly enough money at all. We are currently in a similar scenario with at least 3 clubs at any given moment not spending anywhere near the salary cap.

Be interested to know how many junior players there are.

But this shouldn't be of any surprise to anyone when you consider how limited the sport is geographically. Hull, Wigan, and St. Helens all suffered population decline over the last few decades. Hull has reversed that trend.

1200 juniors took part in London/SE junior competition. You would imagine that could double if there were more amateur clubs in the SE.

 

[wiganermike]

2 hours ago, Spidey said:

Well this has been discussed:

 

I know that the teams in League 1 would be playing for pride only as they would all stay in League 1 regardless if the 2x10 proposal passes but it would be ridiculous to have one club leapfrog 7 clubs by relegating 7 from the Championship and promoting 1 from League 1 simply to give them something to play for in 2022. Having said that it does occur to me that it sounds similar to what happened at the birth of SL in 1996.

If the RFL want the League 1 clubs to have a season with some meaning to it then a more sensible approach (although it would be problematic) would be to combine Championship and League 1 for 2022 and have all 22 teams fight it out for the six qualifying places. The League 1 clubs would almost certainly not make the top 6 but they would have the opportunity to earn it.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Griff said:

I certainly haven't taken the highest salary on offer in my own career. I doubt if players will do that. They'll decide based on where they think they'll be happiest. Prospects of winning stuff will interest players. It's more than likely that a Test grade player will want more to play for Hunslet (sorry, Hunslet, no offence) than he would for Leeds.

It's a great notion that the dross should improve their game rather than hold the others back. But unless that's achievable, it's not really much help, is it?

So if Salford can't get more than 4k fans the larger teams must suffer? That's Salford's issue. 

[Fevrover]

8 hours ago, Leonard said:

The loss of Bradford and it's fan base has also been massive downside the game in recent years. 

And who's fault was that? The fan's certainly didn't deserve it.

[Griff]

19 minutes ago, Leonard said:

So if Salford can't get more than 4k fans the larger teams must suffer? That's Salford's issue. 

How are they suffering?

[gingerjon]

8 hours ago, Leonard said:

The loss of Bradford and it's fan base has also been massive downside the game in recent years. 

I'll tweak that slightly.

The impact of the loss of a single club who were successful and had large (for the sport) crowds for only a short period of time has exposed how fundamentally unsound the sport is.

[Davo5]

10 hours ago, Spidey said:

Well this has been discussed:

 

Stupid,ridiculous,laughable & grossly unfair,but it’s RL so it’s nailed on to happen.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

9 hours ago, Leonard said:

Players should get paid as much as they can get. Not what a salary cap says. In any other profession that would be inconceivable. Good luck if they can get more money, it is their career. 

Likewise the cap should go. It is not the fault of the other clubs if some clubs are weak. It is their responsibility to improve, not of others to be held back to make it a more level field. 

 

Most professional sports have a salary cap 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary_cap

[Damien]

18 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Most professional sports have a salary cap 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary_cap

Most?? That doesn't really back up that claim in the slightest.

It also says:

"Salary caps are rarely used in Europe."

Comparisons with multi billion pound American sports operating completely different models, with much more built in equality, are completely pointless. Teams in some of those sports can also still spend double another. They are not held back.

Comparisons with our main competitors, sports like RU and even the NRL only serve to highlight how much the salary cap has held the game back in this country and how the SL salary cap is used for all the wrong reasons. It has declined significantly in real terms in 2 decades and while starting the same as the RU one the RU one is now multiples of what the SL salary cap is. RU recognised fairly early on that the salary cap needs to continually grow to grow the competition, allow clubs to grow and compete and be competitive against other leagues. In no way has the RU salary cap held the game back in England and been pegged back in the manner it has in Super League. 

In that time the SL salary cap has also declined significantly compared to the NRL salary cap. This is to the point where we can barely compete for players and we now struggle to even retain our own internationals. Young players coming through now dream of a NRL contract and SL clubs are just a stepping stone to that.

Those are our 2 main rivals when it comes to sources of players. No wonder standards have declined and quality is deteriorating.

[Martyn Sadler]

On 07/08/2021 at 10:44, whatmichaelsays said:

No. No it isn't, and this thinking is a large part of why the sport finds itself in this position. It's a zero-growth mindset. 

The people who really matter are not people like you, I or the sort of people on here who are already sold and invested in the sport. It's the people who aren't watching this sport - but could be tempted to, that are the most important here.

The sport can't afford to have a fear of changing and investing in the product to attract new people, just because it might upset some small segments of a traditional base that, evidence suggests, isn't bit enough to provide or sustain growth. 

Then all you have to do is explain how we are going to tempt others to watch.

Everyone accepts that we would like to grow our base, but ideally without losing our existing viewers.

[David Dockhouse Host]

14 hours ago, Wakefield Ram said:

So Sky aren't happy with the quality of some games, but are allegedly going to televise some SL2 (Championship) games the best of which will no doubt feature the current bottom 4 teams from current SL. Yep, that makes sense.

 

Quality of the teams and players don't transpire to the quality of the game.  I've seen some brilliant championship games and some dull NRL games.

Entertainment and quality are not always hand in hand